2 April 2026
The History of the Paris Catacombs: From City Cemeteries to Underground Ossuary
Despite numerous visits to the French capital over the years, there is one place I have never really wished to visit – the famous catacombs of Paris - even though it's in the dead centre of town. It’s not so much an aversion to deathly things, but, OK, definitely an aversion to the quantity on display. So, fortunately, this TED lesson comes along, enabling me to take a quick tour of the Paris catacombs and discover, thanks to some animated grisliness, how the people of Paris took action in the 18th century. I wonder if they realised that what they were creating would become a tourist attraction a few hundred years down the line.
It could all have been avoided, of course, had the good
people of the 9th century not thought it a great idea to bury their
dead in the grounds of Les Innocents – and then carry on doing it for 800
years. A little bit of town planning may
not have gone amiss! Just as well there
was an abandoned network of quarries underneath the city, which themselves were causing the city a problem or two. The solution must have been obvious!
The lesson is by Stephanie H. Smith, directed by Laura
Jayne Hodkin and narrated by Adrian Dannatt. Watch it below.
